utopia (y¡-to´pê-e)
noun1.a. Often Utopia . An ideally
perfect place, especially in its social, political, and moral aspects.
b. A work of fiction describing a utopia.2.An impractical, idealistic
scheme for social and political reform.

Utopias, ideal or perfect
communities. While some writers have created fictional places that embody
their ideal societies, others have written satires that ridicule existing
conditions of society, or antiutopias, which show possible future societies
that are anything but ideal.

Utopia (noun)

absence: being nowhere, Utopia, fantasyfantasy: Utopia

Term coined by Sir Thomas More in
the early 16th century. Derived from two Greek words: Eutopia (meaning
'good place') and Outopia (meaning 'no place'). Thomas More intended
the irony when he wrote his genre-setting novel, Utopia.

"The authoritarian utopias
of the nineteenth century are chiefly responsible for the anti-utopian
attitude prevalent among intellectuals today. But utopias have not always
described regimented societies, centralized states and nations of robots.
Diderot's Tahiti or Morris's Nowhere gave us utopias where men were free
from both physical and moral compulsion, where they worked not out of necessity
or a sense of duty but because they found work a pleasurable activity,
where love knew no laws and where every man was an artist.

"Utopias have often been plans of societies functioning
mechanically, dead structures conceived by economists, politicians and
moralists; but they have also been the living dream
of poets." --Marie Louise Berneri (in Journey Through Utopia , first published
posthumously in 1950).

"We should think of utopia
as a world in which individuals and groups had the freedom, will, energy,
and talent to make and remake their lives unencumbered by insufficiency
and the fear of violent death".
--George Kateb (from the preface to Utopia and Its Enemies , 1972 edition).

"A map of the world that
does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out
the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity
lands there, it looks out, and seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress
is the realisation of Utopias. --Oscar Wilde.

"Without the Utopias of other times,
men would still live in caves, miserable and naked. It was Utopians who
traced the lines of the first city... Out of generous dreams come beneficial
realities. Utopia is the principle of all progress, and the essay into
a better future". --Anatole France.

Utopia is a region on the planet
Mars that was chosen over Cydonia
for the Viking landing. no one knows why, as Utopia is a selection
far less interesting - the equivalent of picking the Sahara Desert over the
Amazon jungle on Earth (ref. _The Mars Mystery_
by Graham
Hancock)

Summarised from an article
by Eliot Weinberger, entitled 'Heaven on Ice' in Utne Reader (May '97)
reprinted from The Nation (Feb 10th '97) and another by Richard C. Morais,
entitled 'Who are the happiest people?', in Forbes magazine (Oct 23rd '95)
monitored for the Institute by Roger Knights.

The classic social ideals
of liberty, equality, and fraternity, along with more modern ones such
as sorority and sustainability seem, of all Western nations, to have been
best realised in the unlikely, but spectacularly beautiful setting ofIceland.
82 per cent of its citizens reckon themselves satisfied with their personal
lives, which is the highest figure anywhere, some 10 per cent more than
the United States.

Remote from the convulsions
of European history, its small, ethnically and linguistically distinct
population (268,000) have sustained a remarkably cohesive culture over
their 1,000 year history. (Since it was originally uninhabited, it has
none of the painful colonial legacies borne by other nations.) Even now,
its uniquely literate population - they are the keenest readers on Earth
- are all well-versed in their foundation
sagas, which celebrate the trials of ordinary folk (rather than kings or
gods) and the magnificent glacial wilderness which surrounds them still.
They speak more or less the same, unique language
as their forefathers, and have the same, ancient system of traditional
names: first name plus fathers' first name plus 'son' or 'daughter'. The
phone book is indexed by first names - all of which are the same - and
people can differentiate one another only because they know each other.

They also have one of the
longest democratic histories in the world - having invented the idea of
a parliament, and established women's rights to divorce and property some
thousand-odd years ahead of the rest of the world.

It is also, nevertheless, a modern, capitalist
welfare state, which provides well for its citizens, and is notable for
its equitable social mix. The statistics make one's jaw droop: there is
very little unemployment; no poverty - and no conspicuous wealth either;
they have the world's lowest infant mortality rate, and are fantastically
long-lived. Whilst enjoying the advantages of modern technocratic society,
they seem to have escaped most of its pitfalls: Since there is so much
freely available geothermal heat, they have little pollution; there is
no army and little crime. Most prisoners are allowed home for holidays
and children walk the city streets without fear.

How have they achieved this
remarkable social success? Writing in the Nation, Eliot Weinberger suggests
that Iceland has simply been lucky with its happy combination of history
and geography: its success could not be emulated elsewhere. Another historical
fluke theory, from sociologist Thorolfur Thorlindson of the University
of Iceland, argues that the Icelanders' gift for contentment arises out
of their centuries of coping with an extreme climate and the vicissitudes
of a fishing economy.

However, as a long standing advocate
of small nations as the best social formula, the Institute for Social Inventions
is pleased to note that Iceland's Utopian social achievements have been realised
on a very human - almost tribal - scale: Akureyri, for instance, its second
city and cultural capital, has a population of 15,000.

"Frankly, I'd find life a bore if I weren't playing for
very high stakes in a very high risk situation. We do have the chance now, for
Utopia and even for immortality.
If we who see this opportunity aren't smart enough, adroit enough, and fast
enough to seize the chance, then we don't deserve to initiate the next stage
of evolution...
Meanwhile, until they shovel me under, I still think our side is winning and
that the power brokers that you worry about are a bunch of dying dinosaurs."

"We should always try to
have a reality-tunnel
this week, bigger, funnier, and more hopeful than we had last week, and
we should aim even higher next week. Besides, paranoia is a Loser script;
it defines somebody else as being in charge around here except me. I prefer
to define myself and my friends as the architects of the future. If David
Rockefeller has the same idea about himself and his friends, well, the
future itself will decide which coalition was really on the Evolutionary Wave:
the Money people or the Idea people"